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Lauren relieved Becky of her waitress duties. The other girl gave her a wan smile; she did not look like she had been enjoying herself.
As she walked over to check on her first table, Emma walked out on stage; some song with the lyrics, “bad, bad girl,” was playing and Lauren stopped to watch her successor for a moment. The girl had a backpack on and, from it, she pulled out a small paddle. “I just can’t seem to make it through the school day without getting in trouble,” she announced to the bar. “And I wanna know who’s gonna play the role of principal and teach me a lesson?”
The money came flying out, and Emma was strutting back and forth from group to group teasingly holding out the paddle as the amounts held up increased. Lauren couldn’t believe what she was seeing; Emma was auctioning off the right to paddle her on stage. And it was a revenue winner.
Finally, one man seemed to win out and Emma handed him the paddle as she whispered in his ear. She popped back up and addressed the whole, now very excited crowd. “And as every good schoolgirl knows,” she put a finger coyly up to the side of her mouth. “I mean naughty schoolgirl . . . if you get paddled at school,” she pulled a strap out of her backpack, “you can expect to get it just as bad at home.”
The money came flying out again and Emma repeated the process with the strap. Lauren just couldn’t belie—
SMACK! The slap to her bare butt startled her right out of any thoughts about Emma.
“Hey! Sweetcheeks! How ‘bout you get outta the way so we can see the show?”
Lauren turned, brought back to her humiliating reality where she was standing wearing nothing but a garter and high heels while waiting on the men there to see the show.
The group at this table looked to be construction workers or some other sort of blue collar workers. The man who’d slapped her bottom—she caught herself rubbing it—was husky, his palms rough and his forearms like tree roots.
“Sorry, gentlemen, and good afternoon,” she said. “My name is Lauren, and I’ll be serving you for the next hour or so.” The thought of that made her shudder—an hour stumbling around naked in these heels delivering drinks and food to a crowd of rowdy men! “Just so you know, I’m no-touching—”
“Sure ya are, sweetcheeks,” the husky man casually reached out and patted her on the behind as the rest of the men laughed.
Lauren didn’t know how to react, so she smiled to keep from crying and continued, “Is there anything I can get you?”
“Yeah, how ‘bout you start us off with a free round for blocking our view?”
Lauren started to object and then a brief flash of her contract flashed through her mind: treat all requests from men as commands from Don. She gave her fake smile again, “That seems fair, sir. What will everybody have?”
After a few minutes of dithering, Lauren was clopping off toward the bar to get a round of two Red Bulls and vodka and four high end bourbons. She had to fight back tears when the bartender told her how much it was going to cost her: $66! Even not counting the cost of her outfits, that would probably consume the tips from her next two sessions of dancing!
When she delivered the drinks, they at least had the courtesy to thank her, but they forced her to bend over the table to reach the furthest men; the two nearest her commented on the view and she turned bright red, provoking more laughs.
By the time Lauren had circulated to all of her tables and filled their orders, Emma was on her fourth song and dancing naked and flirtatiously on stage. As the song wore down she pulled the first man who’d won her auction on stage, took on a contrite expression while he, with poor acting, admonished her, and then bent over for five licks of the paddle. She repeated the process for the second man with the strap. The crowd loved it but what Lauren noticed was that, even though Emma was biting her lip and clearly struggling to hold back tears, the strokes didn’t look nearly as hard as what Don delivered; she wished she could convince him to ease up a little.
As her shift as a waitress wore on, Lauren hustled around taking orders, delivering drinks and food, and slowly getting the hang of walking quickly in her high-heeled boots. She reflected on her situation. Yesterday, she had been a well-paid financial consultant, working in an office, respected by her peers, and, most importantly, clothed. Today she was running around naked, struggling to keep up with the demands of the men around her while trying to dodge their gropes and just hoping that they would tip her generously. Soon, she would again be dancing naked on stage for them—and still just hoping that they would tip her generously. In place of the respect she was used to, when they wanted her attention they slapped her on the butt or yelled some degrading name at her.
But that p-word was the problem, wasn’t it? Peers. She had to get it through her head that men were not her peers; they were—and always would be—her betters. She was convinced that if she could just make herself believe that, this whole experience would be less humiliating. Once she believed that, it was a simple step to understanding that these men had a right to treat however they wanted, and she should just be grateful for any kindness or generosity they showed her. The only respect that was owed was from her to them, and she had spent too long not acting that way.
If nothing else, she certainly deserved this punishment. She was just grateful that Don was even giving her this opportunity after she’d messed up such an easy task like writing that letter. He could have just proceeded to a harsher physical punishment. She’d started to read up on the internet and, frankly, there were some physical punishments out there that terrified her far more than the strap.
SMACK! “Hey, you ditz. Get me another Sam Adams.”
Lauren turned to the gentleman, trying to rub the sting out of her butt. “Yes, sir.”
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